Audreys
It was a rainy Thursday when I first drove past the shop. It was on the end of a block of six, freshly marked carparks out the front and new gardens hanging in against a hot summer. Somebody was bothering to keep the complex neat and tidy, which was unusual in Hunterville. The other shops were what you would expect. Tattooist, Adult Shop, Thai Takeaway, two vacant spaces and then what had caught my eye at the end of the block. A new store, or maybe an office, as all the windows and the front door were backed by closed venetian blinds. Not inviting and yet open for business.
Light spilled through a set of slightly open venetians, falling like a zebra’s lost stripes on the swept concrete outside. Along the façade was signage with one word repeated in a stylish font reversed out of a deep purple. The word was Audreys. Just like that, no number or contact details, no details of what happened inside and irritatingly, no possessive apostrophe. Was it a café or maybe a massage studio? Perhaps one that offered happy endings if they thought that was what you wanted. Those places usually gave some clues that they offered those services, but Audreys gave nothing away.
All that money on effective signage, stylish branding and to leave out the apostrophe. Even worse, give no clue what Audreys actually did or offered. It was baffling but also compelling. Perhaps that was the idea, if so, it was a nice piece of marketing.
That night I tried to look up Audreys on the internet but there was no Audreys in Hunterville. A dive bar in Geelong, a hatted restaurant in Adelaide, closest to home was a dress shop for the larger woman in a town three hours away, but nothing in Hunterville. So the next Saturday I waited until mid-morning and then drove back to see what Audreys was all about.
The car park was empty when I pulled in. It was too early for the other stores’ clientele. Now that I was up close, I could see a sign in the window facing the car park, placed between the glass and the blinds. It said ‘Audreys is Open.’ I got out, locked the car, stepped up to the door and pushed. The door did not move, didn’t even rattle, but a doorbell was mounted on the door frame. The odd mix of welcome and aloofness at Audreys was starting to annoy as well as intrigue. I pushed the button and heard a soft chime from deep inside the building. The door opened immediately, swung wide by a tall, bald man in a pristine white lab coat. His porcelain, egg-shaped face cracked wide with a welcoming smile.
‘Good morning Sir. Please, come inside,’ he said, and stepping aside, ushered me into the chilled, bright, space.
I stepped into a small room filled by three white leather armchairs and a solid, low pine table on which sat a laptop. All the windows were shuttered by white venetians, the floor was polished concrete and the multiple lamps around the room and in the ceiling generated a bright even illumination. There was no music and the air smelt faintly of nail polish remover. A glossy black door was in the unadorned back wall. We stood there silent, me checking out the space, and the technician, as I had started to think of him, staring impassively at my chest. The door snicked shut and the rumble of the traffic was cut off. Suddenly I felt silly, somehow rude and little nervous.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt but I drove past earlier and I saw your sign and, I just wanted, well to know, what you do here. You see I’m in marketing, I have my own business helping small businesses find customers and well, you look like you might need help.’
I was rambling. His grin remained directed at my heart and the silence was making me jumpy. For some reason I started to think that he did not breathe. He stood so still.
‘You want to know what we do here?’
His voice was high and seemed weird coming from such a large frame. His tone was polite and amused.
‘Yes, that is exactly what I want to know, cause you know it’s impossible to tell from the outside. I’m intrigued, are you some sort of cosmetic surgery operation?’ I asked indicating with a wave at his pristine lab coat. Experience had shown me that Cosmetic Surgery operations had healthy marketing budgets.
“Why Sir, you should know we’re not that kind of operation. We don’t advertise to everyone. In fact we only want to be noticed by those who need us. Even if they don’t know it at the time.’
He sounded amused and patient, like a parent with a kid who was a little slow.
‘But we do need to know before we can go further. It’s vital to the process. Who was your Audrey?’
I thought I misheard him. ‘What, what do you mean?’
‘Was she your wife, your mother, perhaps a sister? Hopefully not a daughter, that is the worst circumstance. Who was your Audrey?’ His tone was still polite but less patient.
I stammered, ‘My, my mother was an Audrey.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Mum’s name was Audrey.’
He looked thoughtful, even sombre.
‘Yes, Audrey was your mother. You would like to see her again, to talk, drink tea, and together watch one of her favourite TV shows, perhaps a football game. Would you like to do that?’
My mother had been dead for sixteen months. Her heart attack at ninety-one was sudden and massive and just the way she had always wanted to go. At times since her death I believed she had willed it that way. She hated her crippling arthritis and increasing vagueness. But all that aside, the fact was that mum was dead. I had spread her ashes along with Dad’s in knee deep water at their favourite part of the bay. Neither of them could join me for a cup of tea.
‘Of course you would,’ he continued, answering his own question. “Let’s go into the main room Mr. Geddes. I know you have questions and I can feel you becoming angry and confused. Believe me, going through that door will answer all of your questions and put you at ease.’
He moved to the table and clicked the computer’s mouse. Silently the black door in the opposite wall opened and lights automatically came on in the next room. I didn’t move. I hadn’t told him my name. I was sure of it. This was some big con at the very least, something worse perhaps, and I realised I was tingling with fear. I actually turned towards the door that led back outside. I intended to stride out and go home and then call the cops. I started towards it but then I heard two different voices in the other room. A male, not the technician, was talking. I couldn’t hear the words clearly, but the answering voice was louder and I recognised it instantly. It was my mother answering. I must have gasped because the technician said softly,
“See, Mr. Geddes, your mother awaits you. Why don’t you come with me and we will say hello?”
“What do you mean? That can’t be mum, she’s dead.”
“Well that’s as maybe.”
Such an old-fashioned phrase, one Mum had used I realised in the part of my brain that was working. The rest was numb, jammed up with disbelief, but my body was moving. The part of me that ached to see her again had taken control and I was walking towards the other room. The technician had put his long arm gently around my back. I felt like I had been scooped up in a net for one, an ignorant fish for the taking, but another part of me was coming alive to the wonderful possibility of seeing my mother and talking to my Audrey again.
I walked into the room. The second we entered, the lighting changed, become much more like a natural sunlight. The room heated up, became humid, somehow a breeze that smelt of freshly mown grass passed over me. There was a large TV and two recliner rocker chairs in front of it. Cricket was being telecast from somewhere, sometime on the screen. My mother sat in one of the chairs. She had raised the footrest and her swollen feet rested on the leather. The other chair was empty. There was no one else in the room. Whoever had spoken with the male voice was gone. There was no other door but there were windows that gave a vista of tiled roofs silhouetted against a sky bright blue and punctuated with big white fluffs of cloud. On a small table between the chairs there was a steaming mug of milky tea, a puzzle book, pen and reading glasses.
My mother turned her head and smiled at me with that absent, familiar love that I missed. My legs started to fold.
‘You’re here just in time. They’ve finished with all the carry-on of anthems and that other thing. We’ve won the toss and we are bowling. I feel a bit better compared to last weekend, not so dizzy in the mornings. Always feel better when you’re here though. You’re all I have left, love. Sit down. Sit down. Corn beef in the oven for lunch.’
Immediately I smelt the salty, vinegary tang of the meat bubbling in a large pot, the onions and cloves bouncing in the gently simmering water. I collapsed into the other recliner rocker. My mother was still speaking, now describing something that had happened in the retirement village during the week. I jerked my head around. The technician was gone and the door was closed. I turned my head back. My mother was looking at me. She had asked a question but I hadn’t heard.
‘Sorry Mum. What did you say?’
I spoke without thinking. It all seemed right, seemed real. It was her or so close I did not care.
‘I asked, how was your week darling?’
And just like that it was us, on our usual Sunday get together.
‘Not bad, pretty busy with the Raddatz Project. The new bloke in Sydney seems to know his stuff unlike the previous. Bloody clueless he was.’
’You know I still don’t understand what you do. I think my old mind is not as sharp as it used to be.’ I looked at her and she smiled again. I smiled back and her arm reached over the gap between us. Her hand settled on mine where it rested on the chair’s arm. Her hand was warm and real, she gently squeezed my fingers. She took care not to move her twisted thumb, misshapen from the arthritis.
‘That’s ok mum, half the time I don’t know what we’re doing either. Think of it as sales, but I am on a contract so there is just one client. You know them, look, they have a sign there on the boundary.’
I pointed at the TV screen where programmable LED signage flashed advertising messages and company logos as the two batters took the field.
‘How is Aunty Olive? Still in the hospital?’ I asked.
‘She’s bloody lucky. Could have been lying on the bathroom floor for days, the silly moo. You know she wasn’t wearing her thingy around her neck.’ Mum fingered the emergency help medallion hanging on a thin chain around her own scrawny throat.
She looked back at the TV. ‘I told you Corned Beef for lunch, didn’t I?’
The smell of the cheap cut simmering in its salty broth became overwhelming. I flinched, closed my eyes and shook my head. When I opened them again the room was empty except for the white pine chair I was sitting in. The light was even, the air slightly chilled and scentless. I was looking at a blank white wall. I heard the door open behind me and the technician’s voice, soft and sibilant, wrapped around me from behind, like a verbal fog.
‘Now Mr. Geddes, was that not an unexpected pleasure of the highest order?’
I stared at him.
‘How did you do that?’
It was all I could say. Once again he led me with a firm arm in the small of my back. He escorted me out of the room back to the reception area and sat me down in front of the desk. I realised I was silently crying.
‘It’s ok Mr Geddes, this is often the reaction I see. The first time is a very powerful experience.’
A cup of strong Earl grey tea and a tissue appeared in front of me from somewhere.
‘I can’t and won’t tell you how we did that. If you tell anyone we will deny that anything you say ever happened. And believe me, you won’t be able to prove otherwise. But let’s not talk of those things. Let’s instead focus on the most important question. Would you like us to do it again for you? Do it on demand to a timetable of our mutual convenience, and I must bring this up sometime, your means?’
I blew my nose, sipped gratefully, thought frantically.
‘How often and how much?’ I was aware I was almost pleading, already addicted to those precious moments.
‘Mr Geddes, regardless of budget we recommend no more than fortnightly. We have found the temperament seems to struggle with more.’
The constant stare and his gentle, breathy voice were hypnotic.
‘For you, $2000 for an hour session fortnightly. We have looked into things Mr. Geddes and you are, in so many ways, an ideal client. We have no wish to send you broke or drive you away. We want you to be a satisfied customer for years to come.’
He opened a drawer on his side of the desk and pulled out a pen and a sheaf of papers filled with type.
‘Here is the contract, Mr. Geddes.’
He slid the papers across the table. I started to speak but he held up his large hand. His fingers were very long and the three middle fingers were all the same length.
‘You won’t need to read it, Mr. Geddes, there is no small print. You come here every second Saturday afternoon at 1.00pm and spend an hour with your beloved Mother and we will withdraw $2000 from your bank account. I will send a message to your phone that will include a phone number to text us if you are unavailable for the appointment. We do require an hour’s notice of late arrival or cancellation. More than three cancellations or no shows and we charge you anyway. I don’t expect a problem Mr. Geddes, all our customers are delighted with the service. In fact in a lot of the cases, they can’t wait for the next appointment to roll around. We will review the schedule after twelve appointments, not before or after, so please do not ask.’
He proffered the pen. I took it and went to sign where he indicated. The technician grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
‘One more thing Mr Geddes, we prefer to do our own marketing, customer sourcing and management, so please do not mention anything about this to anyone or things will become unpleasant. Do you understand Mr Geddes? It really is very important you respect this part of our arrangement.’
I nodded and he released me. My hand was steady when I signed and dated the papers.
Then the technician thanked me and shook my hand in his dry, warm clasp. We went to the front door and suddenly I was outside. I jumped at a rattle. A heavy-set man, his arms covered in ink, was raising the security grille that protected the entrance to the tattooist’s shop.
He didn’t look me. I walked to my car and sat in it for a long time before I drove home.
**
The next fortnight I spent a lot of time thinking about my experience. I told no one, while wavering between doubting my sanity and yearning for the days to pass before the next appointment. I spent nights on the internet researching AI, robotics, hypnotism, grief and holograms. Three times I started to dial the phone number of my cousin Grace; my closest blood relative. She lived on the other side of the country and I only saw her every few years as the oldest generation died off. With Mum gone, Mum’s sister Rose, Grace’s mother, was the last one left. I wanted to tell her what had happened, tell her not to be afraid of Rose’s failing health and impending death, as there was now a solution to ease the grief. Had she seen one in her city? Had she seen a Roses?
For my second visit I pulled into shopping centre carpark ten minutes early and waited. Except for the Thai takeaway the other shops were open. Two teenage girls in a new 4WD, drove in and parked a few bays down. I watched them get out and stride hand in hand towards the Adult Shop. They never even glanced at the striking plum coloured fascia and expensive signage that topped the entrance of Audreys.
At 12.55 I was walking across the carpark to the front door when a woman came out. She was well dressed. I don’t know if her clothes were expensive, designer brands but they were stylish and suited her petite frame. She was short and her hair was grey and cut in a severe bob. As she walked toward me she looked up from the ground and seeing me, immediately looked down again. In that instant I could see that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes red. I saw a tissue balled in one hand, her car keys in the other. Where we passed each other was close enough to the front door of Audreys, that it must have been obvious that I was going there. Maybe my face had the same look as hers, a mix of excitement and happiness and grief because she looked at me again. She slowed her short strides and as we passed she whispered, ‘Audrey was my youngest.’
She looked down again and kept walking. Before I could say anything she was out of earshot, I would have to turn and follow to reply. I kept walking and with a few strides I was at the doorbell beside the door. I pushed the buzzer and looking up noticed for the first time, the security camera mounted above the door frame.
Just like the first time the door swung open immediately. The technician smiled with
slightly more warmth.
‘Mr Geddes, Good to see you again.’ He stepped aside and I walked into the waiting room. ‘Mr. Geddes, we have confirmed the balance is sufficient in your account and have withdrawn the $2000 for this fortnight’s visit. Can I also say how delighted we are that you did not go through with those phone calls to your cousin Grace in Perth. That would have been a mistake.’
I stood still. My blood pulsed loudly in my head and I opened my mouth to ask how…
Before I could speak the technician added, ‘Come Mr Geddes don’t be naïve. Obviously we need to know so many things to make your visits memorable. This is a significant investment in time and resources for us, and of course as you now appreciate, not everyone is called and even fewer are chosen.’ He pointed towards the rear door. ‘Let us speak no more of this, your mother, your Audrey awaits you.’
I could tell that a few years had passed. Mum looked older, more worn and she was watching the 24-hour news channel, something she started to do in her old age, to my dismay. Mum barely turned around to say hello because the news anchor man was relaying in a tone of deep indignation that the climate change protests occurring in the capital cities had become violent. I sat down in the other chair and waited till the news story had finished.
Mum finally turned to me. ‘Bloody ratbags, should arrest the lot of them.’
‘Ooh, I don’t know Mum, you know they’re just protesting for something they believe in. That is how democracy works.’
‘Climate change! You know what I think, it’s just a cycle, the world has had cycles all through history. Ice ages and what not. That’s all it is.’
‘You don’t think that all the stuff we humans have been doing for the last few hundred years wouldn’t have had an effect? All that smoke and carbon etc we have been pumping out of chimneys and cars,’ I asked, not for the first time. Not a question Mum was going to answer.
‘And those solar panels, I hate those things, bloody monstrosities. You know they are putting them on good farmland now.’
I felt myself losing my temper. I keep thinking that we were going to have a sensible conversation where I will use facts and logic to point out that for example, in the case of solar panels, that if they were being put on farmland that was because the farmer was being paid to have them.
‘Are you saying the farmer can’t decide what he wants to do with his own land?’
The thing was that Mum had always given her opinion on anything whether it was asked for or not. Disagreement was not met with logical rebuts or with contempt. Other points of view were just something to be talked over. There never had been much of a filter. I should have been used to do it. But the two of us together, we just couldn’t leave it alone. I was my mother’s son. Both of us wanted our say and we were determined, hardwired almost, not to give an inch to the other. Within two minutes our voices were raised. She rattled off all the things that she saw as wrong in the world and I patiently pointed out that you can’t stop change, and no, if parents were still able to give their kids a clip under the ear I didn’t think everything would be better. She was old and the world was now so different it frightened her. I understood that. What I didn’t understand is why she was so upset about it, why it bugged her so much. She lived comfortably and safely, she would be dead soon, so why worry about it? The young will have the world that they were building, for better or worse. In the end I exploded at her.
‘For fucks sake! No, I don’t think the Liberal Party are doing a good job. They could be selling heroin to school kids and you would still say that. I didn’t vote for them and never will. Why do you keep expecting me to agree with you? Why do you think everyone should always agree with your bloody opinion.’
Her eyes filled with tears and I realise she was almost hyper ventilating. I shut up and we sat in silence for a few minutes, both of us angry, one of us ashamed, neither looking at the other. I apologised, something which I noticed she only did if I did it first. I stood up to go and the room suddenly darkened. Suddenly I was in the reception area and then out in the car park. Before I could turn around the door closed behind me and I was left with my feelings, a mix of anger, guilt and sadness.
**
I missed the next fortnight due to COVID. I felt like shit on the Friday so I texted the number and explained. A return text arrived in seconds. It thanked me for the heads up and wished me a prompt recovery. It also advised that I have used one of my cancellations and then I noticed that prompt was spelt incorrectly. The second ‘p’ was missing. I looked at the text for a long time.
**
The visits are now the most important part of my life. I always remember to say I love you to Mum at the beginning of the time because I can never be sure when the time is going to end. I open the door of Mum’s room, as I now thought of it, and step in. The room looks the same but the air is cooler, and when I look out the window, rain is falling and the tree branches are thrashing in a gale. Mum turns from a telecast of a golf tournament and sees me. Her smile is pure surprise and joy.
‘Son, I didn’t hear you pull up. I wasn’t even sure you would come. Hasn’t the
weather been bloody awful the last few days? I was just thinking about putting on a cardi, I’m that cold.’
She rattles the words off, desperate to get them out of her head. Past the smile Mum is older, years have again passed. She looks tired and there is less of her. When I stand beside her chair she tilts her head into my ribs and sighs deeply.
‘Getting old darling, getting old.’
Her skin is more wrinkled and there is a large bruise on her forearm. She sees me looking.
‘Bumped it on the side table getting out of bed yesterday, bloody thing started to bruise up right away and look you can see where the skin tore. It tears so easily now, like crepe paper.’
She changes the subject.
‘I haven’t done anything for lunch, I just couldn’t be bothered.’ Her head bows with the self-criticism implicit in the words. I pat her thinning hair.
‘That’s alright, I’ll just go up to the shops.’
She leaps on the idea like I knew she would.
‘Yes let’s do that, let’s get McDonalds. I have a craving for their chips.’
‘They’re fries Mum.’ I reach in my pocket for the car keys.
Sometime later I feel full, the room is redolent with the smell of deep-fried potato and yet Mum and I are still on our chairs. I don’t feel that we have moved, I don’t remember eating. She is talking about a long-ago wedding.
‘So now Betty is very late and we are all sitting in the pews, and the fans are whirling madly, but it is so hot I can feel perspiration running down between my boobs. So bloody silly getting married in January. But she was always a bit of a dill.”
She stops talking, sighs, her face goes slack, her eyes close and then slowly she begins to topple forward. I cry out, jump out of my seat, catch her, push her back. She is warm and heavy and smells of the same soap as always. After a few seconds Mum sighs again and she wakes.
‘Sorry hon, things just went black there for a second.’
She doesn’t seem fazed and I wonder if there has been more of these episodes than she has mentioned. She gives me a weak smile, reaches for and clasps my hand. My heart is pounding, the thumping is getting louder, faster and then in a flash all is gone.
There is blackness and then the room is bright again and a girl is there. She is blonde, young, maybe ten years old, lying in a single bed with pink blankets surrounded by plush toys. I have enough time to realise that she looks terribly ill before the pressure and the darkness overwhelm me again.
After a few seconds my vision returns and now Mum is back in her chair with her feet up. She is asleep and gentle snoring merges with the drone of the TV. I feel totally confused but go and whisper in her ear that I love her, place my trembling hand on her shoulder but something isn’t right. The whole thing is wrong, it’s not the same.
My hand slips through her body then the chair until my arm hangs at my side. I can’t feel her even though I can still see her. Suddenly there is an overwhelming smell of hand sanitiser, then roast lamb and then sour, sick breath. My senses reel, Mum and her chair flicker and fade, the room goes dark then bright and the door in the back wall swings open. The technician strides in. He is speaking but by now I am crazy with anger.
What I had is gone. I scream at him something about Mum, call him names. We move towards each other. He wants to throw me out I think. It’s hard to tell because even though he is striding towards me with his arms out, his face still has that smile. Without thinking I duck low and go to hit him with a rugby tackle but I pass straight through him and the wall behind him. Nothing is solid. The desk doesn’t stop my head long rush either. I trip over my own feet and go sprawling, finally smacking my head on something hard. As I roll over and get to my hands and knees I feel a change in air pressure.
When I stand and turn, behind me the building, the gardens, the signage, the windows and blinds are all fading away. Becoming transparent, amorphous and then, like a mirage, gone. I am standing in a vacant, overgrown block on old, cracking asphalt and I am alone.
